Introduction from Fourth International

We are publishing Comrade E. Grant's article
as a contribution to the discussion on the national question in
Europe which was opened in our magazine in 1942. We reprint this
article from the October 1945 issue of Workers' International
News, theoretical organ of the Revolutionary Communist Party
of England. Among the discussion articles on this question that
have previously appeared are the following: Three
Theses on the European Situation and The Political Tasks
(December 1942); The National Question in Europe by Marc
Loris (September 1942); Revolutionary Tasks under the Nazi
Boot by Marc Loris (November 1942); Our Differences with
the Three Theses by Felix Morrow (December 1942); The
Central Slogan for Occupied Europe by M. Morrison (January
1943).

The official position of the Socialist Workers
Party on this question, adopted unanimously at the Tenth
Convention in October 1942, appeared in our November 1942 issue
under the heading The
National Question in Europe. (See also European Revolution
and the Tasks of the Revolutionary Party, Resolution of
Eleventh Convention, November 1944, which was published in our
December 1944 issue).

The contribution of our German comrades
(Problems of the European Revolution published in
July-August Workers International News) is an indication
of "retrogression" from the fundamental doctrines of Marxism.
Abandoning the Leninist criterion, the class criterion, of all
processes taking place in society, they have adopted a
pre-Leninist, even pre-Menshevik theory of "democratic"
revolution in Europe. A "national democratic" revolution which,
after the collapse of Hitler, will now be directed throughout
Europe, against the Allies!

It would seem incredible that, after the tremendous struggle
that Trotsky waged for the conception of the permanent revolution
against the revisionists of Stalinism, a petty bourgeois
democratic, revisionist tendency would develop within the ranks
of the Fourth International. It is explained, of course, by the
uninterrupted series of defeats which have been suffered by the
proletariat and the isolation to which the comrades have been
doomed by the emigration. They have succumbed to the pressure of
the petty bourgeois reaction.

These comrades pride themselves on their understanding of
dialectics, but fail even to attempt to examine the problem they
are facing from a genuine historical point of view. From what to
what is society today evolving? The coming to power of Hitler,
the war and its aftermath are a reflection of the blind alley of
capitalism, its disintegration and decay, its incapacity to solve
a single one of the problems confronting it. It is a result of
the failure of the proletariat through the treachery of its
leadership (Stalinist and Reformist) to overthrow capitalism and
institute the rule of the working class. To these elementary
propositions, not even the confused comrades of the IKD would
dare to object, but, not stating the problem clearly, they draw
the most fantastic conclusions from the gangrenous and rotting
collapse of capitalism. They draw the conclusion that the
bourgeoisie through a "democratic" revolution, can still play a
progressive role! It is true that they put this forward under the
guise of a "peoples" movement, the class character of which they
do not define. But never in modern times has the "people" or the
"nation" as such played an independent role. The petty bourgeois
masses, in all their layers, can support either the proletariat
or the bourgeoisie. There cannot be, in modern society, any other
state but that of the proletariat or the bourgeoisie. Lenin
clearly developed this idea when he wrote:

... all political economy – if one has
learned anything at all from it – the whole history of the
revolution, the whole history of political development during the
nineteenth century, teaches us that the peasant goes either with
the worker or with the bourgeois. If you do not know this, I
should like to say to such citizens, just reflect upon the
development of any one of the great revolutions of the eighteenth
or the nineteenth centuries, upon the political history of any
country in the nineteenth century. It will tell you why. The
economy of capitalist society is such that the ruling power can
only be either capital or the proletariat which overthrows it.
Other forces there are none in the economics of society.
(Vol.XVI, page 217). [First All-Russian
Congress on Adult Education on May 19,1919, Lenin, Collected
Works, vol. 29, pp. 367-68]

The IKD's intentionally vague talk of the struggle
of the "whole people against the national and political
oppressor" is intended to cover up their capitulation to the
petty bourgeois conception of the revolution. Confronted with the
above quotation, they would undoubtedly be compelled to accept
it, if only in words. But what follows from it? What is the class
character of this "peoples" movement? Is it proletarian, is it
bourgeois or is it petty bourgeois? In attempting to skip over
the class character (always a characteristic of petty bourgeois
thought) of this movement, the IKD reveal the genesis of their
ideas, petty bourgeois capitulation to bourgeois democracy and
imperialism.

Taking as their point of departure, the failure of the
proletariat to overthrow capitalism, the IKD comrades argue that
society has been thrown so far back that the bourgeois-democratic
revolution solved by the French Revolution of 1789 is posed anew
for solution! What a conclusion. From the failure of the
proletariat (due to its leadership) they turn to the petty
bourgeoisie, the people, for salvation. But precisely the
impotence of the petty bourgeoisie to find a new road, and its
frenzy opened the way for the Fascist gangs to come to power.
From the petty bourgeoisie, there can come no leadership. In
modern society, they must find leadership in one or the other
basic classes, bourgeoisie or proletariat. Having rejected the
proletarian revolution as a solution, quite naturally the IKD
find themselves in tow to the bourgeoisie. But these conceptions
represent an entire break with the Marxist conception of the
epoch which is, in the words of Lenin, one of wars and
revolutions, proletarian revolutions. Thus the bourgeoisie is
plunged into its wars and bestial repressions not because there
is any solution for it thereby, but because they are driven to
these extremities by the insoluble contradictions of the system.
Wars and repressions cannot provide a solution, but only
aggravate the problem.

The victory of the German imperialists led to the
collaboration of the conquered bourgeoisie of France and other
countries in Europe with the victors as junior partners in the
exploitation of the masses. This could not but lead to an
intensification of the class hatred of the workers, not alone
against the foreign oppressor but against his agents at home. The
petty bourgeoisie as well as the workers could not but conceive
hatred for the trusts and combines who placed their profits above
the fiction of the "nation." Consequently, the basis for an
alliance of proletariat and petty bourgeoisie against the foreign
and home oppressors, against capitalism, arose.

In the backward countries, the national bourgeoisie prefers in
the last analysis to combine with the landlords and foreign
imperialist oppressors against their own workers and peasants
because of the incapacity to solve the problems of the
bourgeois-democratic revolution, according to Lenin and Trotsky.
(Especially the latter developed this idea with the theory of
permanent revolution.) Because of the impossibility of the petty
bourgeoisie playing an independent role, only the proletariat as
a class could lead the struggle against the foreign oppressor and
carry through the bourgeois democratic revolution and the
struggle for national liberation. But such a struggle, by its
very nature, could only lead, either to the victory of the
imperialist bourgeois counter revolution or to the conquest of
power by the proletariat. Under such conditions, the task of the
proletariat and its vanguard is to maintain its independence from
the bourgeoisie and to fight to win the plebian masses to its
side.

The ideas of the IKD thus revise the conception developed by
Trotsky for the Chinese and Indian revolutions and apply this
revised conception to the advanced countries of Europe!

The confusion in the minds of these comrades is shown by their
insistence on the necessity of a transitional revolution before
the proletarian revolution, a so-called "democratic" revolution.
In this they repeat all the mistakes of Stalin-Bukharin in
1925-27, in the Chinese revolution. With the difference that the
Stalinist clique could manufacture the semblance of a case as the
national democratic revolution had not been accomplished in the
East. But even here, as the experience of the Russian revolution
had already shown, such conceptions could only lead to disaster.
But to apply an even more crass formulation than that which the
Stalinists applied in China, to Europe, is to reach the limit of
revisionism of the doctrines of Trotskyism. At least Stalin tried
to cover his confusion with the outworn Bolshevik formula of the
"democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry." That
was the only class formula he could find to describe the
"democratic" revolution which he foresaw in Asia. Not having
sufficiently thought out the problem, our German comrades leave
these questions unanswered. What will this democratic revolution
look like? Which class will play the leading role in its
realization? Which class will rule in the government? What
difference is there between the regime of bourgeois democracy and
the regime of this "democratic" revolution?

Posing the problem correctly is already half-way to answering
it. Not using the Marxist method, our comrades have lost
themselves in a fog of petty bourgeois phrasemongering.

It seems fantastic that there should be any argument on
questions that any raw student of Trotskyism should understand.
Especially so with people with great "theoretical" pretensions.
It underlines the necessity for a regular re-statement of the
basic theories of the movement, not alone for the benefit of new
recruits but for people to whom such propositions ought to be
elementary.

In dealing with the problem of the permanent revolution in
China, Trotsky, answering in advance our comrades of the
emigration, explained "...in China, the question of national
liberation occupies a Large place. This demonstrates that the
formula of the democratic dictatorship (to replace that of
struggle for proletarian dictatorship) presents a much more
dangerous reactionary snare ..." And again "in a bourgeois
society with already developed class antagonisms there can only
be either an open or disguised dictatorship of the bourgeoisie or
of the proletariat. There cannot be any talk of a transitional
regime." [source]

Our comrades have been unable to think their ideas through to
the end and thus they end up with a policy which is a ludicrous
caricature of that of Stalinism. They argue:

"The retrogressive development of capitalism
led to the destruction of national independence and democratic
liberties of the most important European nations. Nowhere did the
movement go beyond the limits of bourgeois demands, the first
attempt of the suppressed masses of Europe to realize the
democratic revolution and to re-conquer national independence,
was doomed to failure ... the second wave of democratic
revolution will find many obstacles removed which impeded the
first ..."

Since these comrades argue that Europe has been
thrown back centuries and that the task is to carry out the
bourgeois revolution (for that is the class nature of the
"democratic revolution") how is this to be accomplished? In the
past it was carried through by the plebian masses who could not
go beyond the limits of the bourgeois forms of property. If this
so-called bourgeois revolution is to be carried through by the
proletariat, then the whole scheme does not make sense. For if
the proletariat is to play the leading role, then the revolution
can only be the proletarian revolution, leading to the
dictatorship of the proletariat. In lashing the Stalinists,
Trotsky remarked on the attempt to separate "democracy" from its
social content. "The hopelessness of the epigones is most crassly
expressed in the fact that even now they still attempt to
contrast the democratic dictatorship with the dictatorship of the
bourgeoisie, as well as to the dictatorship of the proletariat.
But this means that the democratic dictatorship must have a
transitional character, that is, a petty bourgeois content."
[source] If
the comrades argue that they stand for a bourgeois democracy then
the leading role of the bourgeoisie is reinforced and their
criticism of the Stalinist line in France is absurd. The
Stalinists and reformists who had developed a "line" in France
and the other occupied countries very similar to that of the IKD
consistently fought for the "national war of liberation" in which
all classes were involved in the fight for "democracy" without
explaining its social content. Consequently the feeble criticism
of the IKD of their role in the "national liberation" movement is
completely unreal. If the position of the IKD were correct,
instead of criticizing, they should have agreed entirely with the
course pursued by the old workers' organizations in Europe.

The trouble with the IKD is that, having been thrown off
course by the reactionary wave, they mistake history's posterior
for its face. Searching for an impossible "democratic"
revolution, they cannot see the visage of the early stages of the
proletarian revolution and equate bourgeois "democratic"
counterrevolution of the period of the decline of the bourgeoisie
with the democratic revolution of its rise! They do this because
they confuse the democratic demands of the proletariat with the
nature of the revolution which the proletariat is called on to
face. Democratic demands, the right to strike and organization,
the right of free speech, press, elections, Constituent Assembly,
etc., etc., are part of the transitional demands of the
proletariat in its struggle for the Socialist revolution. These
demands must be inscribed on the banner of the Revolutionary
Party in its efforts to mobilize the masses in the struggle to
educate them in the need for the conquest of power. In every
revolution of the proletariat in modern times, one or the other
democratic demand has played its part in the struggle of the
proletariat against the bourgeoisie. But in and of itself, this
did not determine the nature of the struggle upon which the
proletariat was embarked.

Both the opportunists of the IKD and various sectarians were
answered in advance by the tactics pursued by the Bolsheviks in
the Russian revolution. Here, while steering a course towards the
October insurrection, on the basis of the understanding of the
social nature of the tasks facing the proletariat, the Bolsheviks
combined this strategical objective with flexible tactics. They
fought for democratic demands, but this struggle was indissolubly
linked with the struggle for the dictatorship of the
proletariat.

Our epoch, even in the backward countries which have not
accomplished the democratic revolution, remains the epoch of
proletarian revolution and bourgeois counter-revolution (whatever
its specific form), not at all the epoch of democratic
revolution. The victory of fascism in no way alters the social
character of the regime, the economy of capitalism or the role of
the different classes in society. The victory in war, the plunder
and national oppression of one capitalist nation of other
imperialist powers, in itself marks no decisive change within
bourgeois society. The epoch of the democratic revolution is long
since past, consequently, the policies that base themselves on
non-existent phantoms of "democratic revolution" can only play
into the hands of the bourgeoisie. Not at all accidental is the
fact that the Stalinists-reformists in Spain during the civil
war, and under the German occupation in Europe, carried out their
counter-revolutionary work under the guise of a "struggle for
democracy."

Such a conception of the tasks facing the proletariat can be
no less than a "democratic noose" to strangle the movement of the
proletariat. It represents an idealization of the role of the
petty bourgeois masses and because it involves capitulation to
their conceptions inevitably hands the proletariat bound hand and
foot to the "national" bourgeoisie.

Precisely because of this, what the Three Theses
comrades imagine to be the "clever" utilization by the Stalinists
of the so-called "national" movement constituted the greatest
betrayal. Our comrades announce "unconditional support" of the
"Resistance Movement." But which section of the Resistance
Movement, they do not explain. They reject, apparently, the
leadership of de Gaulle and the other imperialists. But
unconditional support to the Resistance Movement, in its very
essence, must mean support for the imperialists who were in
control of it. Perhaps they mean unconditional support of the
Stalinist wing of the Resistance Movement? We can imagine the
shudders such a suggestion would bring to the comrades of the
IKD.

However, they land themselves in the camp of Stalinist theory,
simply because they have not understood, or have forgotten, the
social content of the "democratic" revolution: the creation of
the national state; the overthrow of feudalism and the
introduction of bourgeois relations; the separation of Church
from State; the agrarian revolution.

What they imagine is the basic content of "democracy": freedom
of organization, speech, etc., is in reality a by-product of the
class struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. It is
the building up of the bulwarks of proletarian democracy within
capitalism, points of support for the new system within the
framework of the old. Precisely here is the real "retrogressive"
mark of fascism: the razing to the ground of all the independent
organizations of the proletariat. It is not without importance
that this work is accomplished using the petty bourgeoisie as a
lever against the working class. True, the petty bourgeoisie can
play a different role under certain conditions. But only if the
proletariat in an independent struggle fights to win the middle
classes to its side and does not dissolve itself into the petty
bourgeois swamp.

Certainly the plebian masses carried through the bourgeois
revolution in 1789. But they are incapable of ever again playing
a leading role, an independent role, in the development of
society. They will always be an adjunct to one of the two basic
classes, the bourgeoisie or the proletariat. Where they do not
follow the proletariat, as all history shows, they inevitably
land in the camp of reaction. Thus in the struggle for the
socialist revolution, under the Nazis as well as under the regime
of the "liberated" countries and the Allies, the proletariat
fights for the winning over of the petty bourgeoisie to the
socialist revolution by economic as well as democratic
transitional demands. There may be many ebbs and flows in the
struggle. At one stage or another the revolutionary communists
may demand a fight for elections, local and national, Constituent
Assembly, etc. But whether successfully realized or not the
struggle for these demands can be but episodes on the road to the
proletarian revolution and the programme of socialist revolution
with which they must be linked.

The hopeless muddle and eclectic outlook of the comrades is
indicated when they say in one passage, which contradicts
everything else they write, that the "democratic revolution" they
visualize can only be carried out by the proletariat. As a matter
of fact, in the sense in which they visualize "democratic
revolution," it is not at all excluded for a longer or shorter
period that parliamentary democracy will exist in Western Europe.
Indeed, this process is taking place before their eyes in France,
Italy and other countries. They are too blinded and biassed by
the so-called "national question" to see this process taking
place and to understand what it means. No, comrades, this is not
the democratic revolution, but the means utilized by the
bourgeoisie (democratic counter-revolution) in its struggle
against the proletarian revolution.

But transitional demands, if allowed to become ends in
themselves and separated from the strategic policy to be pursued
by the Marxists, must inevitably become a trap for the
proletariat. Thus, under the Nazis, the struggle for national
liberation had to be linked to the struggle for the Socialist
United States of Europe. The collapse of the national states
objectively posed the problem of the unification of the
proletariat of Europe against all the oppressors.

The movement of the resistance in the various countries was a
class movement of the proletariat and the lower strata of the
petty bourgeoisie. Directed against German imperialism under
correct guidance and leadership, it should have been directed
against the quisling bourgeoisie as well. Events have shown that
it was the mass organizations which constituted the core of the
resistance movement. The class antagonism, despite the
Stalinists' attempt to reconcile the proletariat to the
"national" bourgeoisie (which could only be done by capitulating
to it), could not damp down the class struggle which burst forth
in Yugoslavia, Greece, Poland in civil war even before the
ousting of the Germans. Was this also the result of the attempted
carrying through of the democratic revolution?

In reality, the so-called "democratic" struggle, the uniting
of the whole "people" was in itself an example of the worst
caricature of Popular Frontism and class collaboration, under the
pretext of unity with the middle class. It was unity in a
national struggle together with the agents of the bourgeoisie
while the decisive sections of the bourgeoisie were in the camp
of the foreign oppressor.

Against the foreign oppressor, as the comrades in Europe
correctly understood, the struggle could only be waged as a class
struggle appealing to the solidarity of the German workers and
peasant soldiers. The chauvinist methods of Stalinism and
reformism were grist to the mill of Hitler. A "democratic" phase
in Europe will result not from the objective need for the phase
of democratic revolution but because of the sell-out of the old
workers' organizations. Had Stalinism and Social Democracy stood
on the program of Marxism, there would have been the possibility
of a transition immediately to the dictatorship of the
proletariat. The one thing lacking was precisely the
revolutionary party which could imbue the masses with a
consciousness of their Socialist task. Only the weakness of the
revolutionary party and the counter-revolutionary role of
Stalinism has given capitalism a breathing space. Seeing that it
is virtually impossible to rule by the method of fascist or
military dictatorship, the bourgeoisie has prepared to switch,
for the time being, to the bourgeois democratic manipulation of
their Stalino-reformist agents. This does not constitute a
democratic revolution, but, on the contrary, a preventative
democratic counter-revolution against the proletariat. Under
modern conditions, there can be no other kind of democratic
revolution or regimes. In Germany in 1918, precisely the Social
Democracy carried out their hangman's work under the slogan of
"democracy." But this was no democratic revolution wherein
different classes replaced those already in power. It was a
proletarian revolution which was strangled by the agents of the
bourgeoisie.

Similarly, what Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin (who
understood the problem much better apparently, than the comrades
of the IKD) were afraid of in Italy, Greece, Germany, France,
Belgium, was not the "democratic" revolution, but the proletarian
revolution, as Churchill clearly explained.

After the recent experiences in Europe, only those who have
abandoned the idea of the class struggle, could in any way doubt
this. Our comrades must have a peculiar sense of humor to say,
with a straight face, "The situation today is, therefore, in its
fundamental traits, the same as that of 1941 and the Three
Theses have not only been confirmed, but their practical
proposals retain full validity." To back this up, they tell
us

"The national oppression has remained, only the
uniforms of the oppressors have changed. For the French,
'national independence' by grace of the USA, is a farce and an
ever-growing part of the French people realize this...American
imperialism has not the slightest interest in restoring to health
an old imperialist competitor. In consequence, it does not lift a
finger to put on its feet again, the absolutely broken down
French industry and, with it, French national independence."

To compare the domination of America over France
and "liberated" Europe which is maintained by means of economic
pressure, with the direct visible jackboot of the Nazis is
ridiculous. In the consciousness of the masses, while there may
be a dislike of Uncle Sam, it is against the French bourgeoisie,
the trusts and combines that the hatred of the masses is
directed. This talk of merely the uniform being changed is an
indication of how far from reality the comrades have strayed. The
workers' parties and organizations are legal in France and the
totalitarian heel has been lifted. It would have been quite
impossible for the Anglo-American imperialists to rule France and
the other liberated countries with the methods of the Gestapo and
SS, if only because of the resistance of their own soldiers to
the playing of such a role.

Thus the attempt to justify a false position only leads to
further errors. In reality, the position in Europe arising out of
the collapse of capitalism and the aftermath of war is that the
most favorable objective conditions are created for the victory
of the proletarian revolution. All the conditions laid down by
Lenin are present: loss of confidence and uncertainty of the
ruling class, vacillation and discontent of the petty
bourgeoisie, readiness of the discontented working class to make
the most heroic sacrifices in order to overthrow the capitalists.
All that is lacking is the subjective condition – the
revolutionary party.

The mass, not alone of the working class, but of large strata
of the petty bourgeoisie, are looking towards Communism as a way
out of the social impasse. Yet the revisionists and fainthearts
put forward a policy far more backward and reactionary than even
the reformists in Europe have dared to do, for the period which
now unfolds. The "crisis" in Europe consists only in the fact
that the Stalinists and reformists are carrying out a policy of
collaboration with the bourgeoisie in the construction of
"democracy." With this, the comrades of the Three Theses
should really have no quarrel. It is impossible with an
orientation towards a "democratic" revolution to carry out any
other policy.

If the comrades of the Three Theses condemn the
Stalinist course, that can only be from force of habit and
because they have not thought out their own policy to its
necessary conclusions.

The shift away from the ideas of the proletarian revolution
and the petty bourgeois capitulation to nationalism can best be
seen in the references to Germany. Here, the comrades appeal to
the tradition of the national liberation war of 1813-1815, the
students' movement (Burschenschaft) and 1848. This is an
entirely reactionary and retrogressive movement on the part of
the comrades: the great tradition of the proletarian revolution
of 1918, the tradition of Liebknecht and Luxemburg: this is not
even thought worthy of mention!

It is true that, as a consequence of her defeat, Germany will
suffer national oppression and dismemberment. But after the last
war, Germany was also reduced to the status of a State oppressed
by her imperialist rivals. Nevertheless, the emphasis was laid on
the class issues in Germany by the Leninist Comintern, while
opposition to the Versailles Treaty was maintained. Similarly,
today the German workers can struggle against the foreign
oppressor, only through the struggle against the national
bourgeoisie, which collaborates with the victors. The struggle
against national oppression can only be waged as a struggle for
the proletarian revolution.

The comrades have written a lot of nonsense about the change
from the regime of the Nazis to that of the Allies in Europe
merely being a change of uniform (as usual with opportunists,
they find themselves in warm support of the ideas of the
ultra-lefts). Even in Germany itself, that is not so. The Allies
rapidly, even if reluctantly, were convinced of the impossibility
of merely continuing the Nazi regime with the Allies in the place
of the Hitler gangsters. They had neither the internal points of
support within the population, the backing among the masses at
home, nor the willingness of the British and American troops to
play the role of SS. Thus, in order to gain some sort of basis,
they have had to allow organizations and rights to the
proletariat, however limited these may be.

In Germany, obviously it will be the duty of the Trotskyists
to fight for an extension of democratic rights against the
dismemberment and reparations, against the occupation of Germany.
But, no more than the struggle against Versailles, can such a
struggle be regarded as a "detour through the democratic
revolution."

The struggle for the national liberation of Germany, by its
very essence can only be a struggle directed against the German
bourgeoisie. The German ruling class will be only too willing to
play the same lackey role to the Allies as the French bourgeoisie
played to Nazi imperialism. The German capitalists called Hitler
to power, they bear the responsibility for the catastrophe
Germany has suffered. That should be the axis around which the
propaganda of the German Marxists will revolve. Far from being
separated, the struggle for German freedom can only be won as a
struggle for the proletarian revolution. The British and American
troops will only respond to class propaganda, to the idea of a
Socialist Germany and a Socialist Europe, as an answer to the
nightmare of war and economic misery.

The ideas of the Three Theses, especially for Germany,
are false through and through. In appealing to the moth-eaten and
now reactionary tradition of 1813, etc., they are playing the
traditional role of the German petty bourgeois intellectuals,
whom Marx so scathingly castigated. If these ideas played any
role at all, they could only be the basis for a new petty
bourgeois reaction. Having been utterly discredited in its Nazi
guise,

the Nationalist reaction is quite likely to hark back to these
old traditions. The Stalino-Social Democracy, acting as agents of
the conquerors, will discredit themselves in the eyes of the
masses. If the Trotskyists do not put forward a clear
internationalist revolutionary alternative, the way will be
cleared for the petty bourgeoisie to rally round such a platform
and become a helpless tool once again in the hands of the
bourgeoisie. How "imminent" or not the proletarian revolution in
Germany may be, it is the goal to which .all the "democratic" and
economic demands from the transitional bridge and not the bridge
to the "democratic" revolution. In Germany, as in Europe, there
can be no "democratic" revolution separate and apart from the
proletarian revolution.

In Europe today, we stand, not on the threshold of the
struggle for "democracy" and "great national wars of liberation"
but on the struggle for the proletarian revolution and
revolutionary wars against all attempts at capitalist
intervention.

To end this article, we can do no better than quote
extensively from Trotsky on the problems of the revolution
against Fascism in Italy. Foreseeing, in advance, the reactionary
arguments of the type of those of the IKD, though he could not
have expected that such would emanate from within the ranks of
the Fourth International, Trotsky wrote:

... what social character will the anti-fascist
revolution acquire? You deny the possibility of a bourgeois
revolution in Italy. You are perfectly right. History cannot turn
backward a big number of pages, each of which is equivalent to
half a decade. The Central Committee of the Italian Communist
Party already tried once to duck the question by proclaiming that
the revolution would be neither bourgeois nor proletarian but
popular, (i.e. "democratic" – E.G.). It is a
simple repetition of what the Russian Populists said at the
beginning of this century when they were asked what character the
revolution against Czarism would acquire. And it is still the
same answer that the Communist International gives today about
China and India. It is quite simply a so-called revolutionary
variant of the social democratic theory of Otto Bauer and others,
according to which the state can raise itself above the classes,
that is, be neither bourgeois nor proletarian: This theory is as
pernicious for the proletariat as for the revolution. In China it
transformed the proletariat into cannon fodder for the bourgeois
counter-revolution.

Every great revolution proves to be "popular" in
the sense that it draws into its tracks the entire people. Both
the Great French Revolution and the October Revolution were
absolutely popular. Nevertheless, the first was bourgeois because
it instituted individual property, whereas the second was
proletarian because it abolished this same individual property.
Only a few petty bourgeois revolutionists, hopelessly backward,
can still dream of a revolution that would be neither bourgeois
nor proletarian, but "popular" (that is, petty bourgeois) ...

However, while holding to this or that
democratic slogan, we must take good care to fight relentlessly
against all forms of democratic charlatanism. The "democratic
Republic of the workers," watchword of the Italian Social
Democracy, is a sample of this low-grade charlatanism. A republic
of the workers can only be a proletarian class state. The
democratic republic is only a masked form of the bourgeois
state.

It is precisely the type of "democratic
charlatanism" propagated by the supporters of the Three
Thesesthat Trotsky warned the cadres of the Fourth
International against. Continuation on the road mapped out by the
comrades of the IKD must, in the long run, lead to a break with
the Fourth International, with the program of the proletarian
revolution.